Eleventh Hour
by Entrance Denied
Summary: Sasuke has an altercation with Itachi and Naruto just has to get in the way. Now Naruto can't tell what's real...
1. First Hour

_AN: Wow…I don't even know what to say about this other than it was inspired by a film that I can't remember the name of about lucid dreaming. The idea was pretty realistic, that the guy in this dream world was only sometimes aware that what he was experiencing wasn't real. Then there's this bit where he's with this hobo in a soap kitchen talking about it and the hobo says that the way he sorts out what's real is to turn a light off in the room every time he exits so the guy goes to leave and flicks off the switch but the light stays on regardless. He turns back to the hobo who just shrugs with a huge grin on his face. _

_Warnings: Implied Sasunaru in some places._

_Also, just to make this author's note even longer, the title 'Eleventh Hour' was something I got when looking up synonyms for the 'last minute'._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto._

* * *

**First Hour**

Naruto's leg bounced frantically up and down as he sat rigidly upright in the hard backed chair he had come to familiarise himself with over the school year. His teeth scraped over his bottom lip in a repetitive fashion, the pressure of his canine just shy of drawing blood.

His hands were balled in the hem of his school shirt which was un-tucked, hanging in rough reams around his school trousers. Sweat was seeping into the thin fabric from the palms of his hands and soaking through until a cold wet patch clung to his concave naval. His skin was pale in the half light still filtering through the dusty school windows and his eyes were fixed on the scene playing out below him in the courtyard between Sasuke and his wayward brother.

His heart beat out a magnified rhythm, so powerful that it seemed to distort the air. It was completely out of synch with the clock above the blackboard and the overlapping tick made it seem like his heart was working twice as hard as it might need to.

From his position up on the second floor, Naruto could see that Sasuke was trying desperately to keep himself together; his face contorted into a dynamic mask of hatred. The expression was so intense, so absolute that Naruto's breath hitched in his throat as he watched the two of them exchange a few words.

It was too strong.

The expression on his face was too strong.

Even after all the time they had spent together, after the rivalry, the hesitant friendship and the things they had eventually, grudgingly shared with each other, Naruto had never seen such a strong expression on the face of his now best friend.

It just didn't seem real.

How could anyone hate another human being so much?

When he shifted, the sound of his clothes rustling against the silence was as loud as a thunder clap and Naruto winced involuntarily, irrationally afraid somehow that he would draw attention to himself sitting in the classroom alone after hours as he was. He was afraid that Sasuke would look up and see him, fixing him with that infinitely dark gaze, turning his hatred on the blonde idiot unlucky enough to get a detention on this particular evening.

Saliva pooled in his throat as the voices outside rose in volume.

"You're the only one that can save me Sasuke."

"Why the HELL would I save you? After what you did? What you took from me?"

"I didn't exactly expect you to be willing."

Naruto knew that he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the drawer, was constantly reminded of how stupid he tended to be but even he could discern the true implication of those words and it was like the spell of immobility that had fallen over him was broken.

The silence became so powerful that it turned into thick, static noise and then suddenly, that static was interrupted with the harsh scrape of his chair on the linoleum. His breath whooshed out of him in short sharp bursts, cutting the air in two as he broke into a sprint. His feet clapped on the floor, each reverberation sounding out like canon fire as he shot down the empty corridor just outside his classroom and took the stairs at the end of the hall two at a time. On the last step, his foot faltered and he was subjected to the unpleasant, stomach dropping sensation of freefall for a moment before impacting the hard ground.

A sharp pain through his shoulder.

Adrenaline dulling out the pain to a barely discernable ache though he was aware that his arm was now hanging at a sickening angle.

Thoughts of Sasuke and his brother.

He heaved himself up and continued to sprint recklessly, skirting around the corner and using his good hand to throw open the main doors of the school. His mind seemed to have scrambled, coherence being lost to an overlay of white noise, the sound of pure panic. He was able to register that Sasuke was still alive, standing in front of his brother with a look of the utmost shock before Itachi turned to face him.

Itachi, the brother that Sasuke said had ruined his life.

Itachi, the reason that Sasuke was forced to see a multitude of shrinks.

Itachi, the reason that Sasuke was unable to let out more than the barest flicker of a smile.

Itachi.

_His eyes were red._

* * *

Soft light filtered through the leaves of the oak tree he was lying under, warming his body and playing over his eyelids as a light breeze tossed the thinner branches of the tree and made the leaves dance. Naruto let out a soft sigh, appreciating the feeling of being somewhere so serene, allowing his eyelids to flicker but not wanting to open them just yet.

He could feel someone beside him, one of his arms pressed against warm solidity. Concentrating on the connection, he felt the small thrill of a pulse as that someone shifted slightly, adjusting themselves. There was a slight rustle as the page of a book was turned.

Naruto inhaled deeply, appreciating the crisp smell of the fresh air before letting his eyes fall open. For a few seconds, he simply allowed himself to focus on the interweaving leaves in the wind above him before letting his head fall sideways, his eyes catching on the distinct form of his master Jiraiya.

The old man seemed to be engrossed in his book and Naruto could feel a tugging, sluggish thought in his mind, a notion that tainted the serenity of the moment just a little.

_Jiraiya is going to make me proof read those new pages later._

As if sensing his eyes on the side of his face, Jiraiya let his own gaze wander from the words he had just written until he met Naruto's, smiling a satisfied smile at him. The wind tugged at the sharp white strands of hair falling down his back, obscuring his face for a moment and Naruto only realised that Jiraiya had started speaking when the wind had died down once more.

No sound left the old sage's lips.

Naruto focussed on his moving mouth, watching the formation of words without being able to decipher the meaning. He frowned lightly, bringing a hand up to his ears, feeling for any obstruction but when he let his finger fall away, he could only hear the strange rhythmic tick of something that was completely out of synch with his heart beat.

"What?" he asked, trying not to become unnecessarily alarmed by the fact that he couldn't hear his mentor and friend.

Jiraiya paused, closing his mouth and allowing his grin to widen as he showed Naruto what he had been so intent on instead. Naruto let his eyes sift down to the paper, expecting to see a myriad of complicated characters but what he saw was a single sentence written in such a large font size and in such dark ink that it took up most of the page.

'_Where is Uchiha Sasuke?_'

* * *

He found himself wandering along a familiar corridor though he was hard pressed to remember how he had gotten there. Something urgent was prodding the forefront of his memory but he was unable to get a fix on it and automatically became suspicious, only comfortable in thinking that this must be some form of genjutsu and that he needed to break it as soon as possible.

The problem with this revelation was that he had no idea if he had come with any comrades and of course, the golden rule of genjutsu was to have a comrade help you out if you found yourself caught within one. Since he'd been travelling with Jiraiya, it had become rare for the blonde to be caught in such illusionary techniques so his second logical assumption was that he had come face to face with Itachi, the only person other than Sasuke that could do something like this.

The appearance of the crows lining the corridor confirmed his theory, each of them sporting the trademark red gaze of the sharingan and Naruto felt the breath freeze in his lungs as he took in the particular black details like an intricate tattoo on the red canvas of Itachi's eyes.

"Alright, you have my attention," Naruto muttered, reaching into his pouch and allowing his fingers to brush the edge of his kunai. Dropping into a more defensive stance, he concentrated on trying to see anything out of the ordinary, un-focussing his eyes and trying to catch a subtle distortion on the air or a whispered sound that might connect him to reality. A single bead of sweat trickled out from under his hitae-ate, running down the length of his face to hang limply from his angular chin.

A laugh broke the silence and the crows lined before him in the corridor opened their beaks as one. As the laugh stretched on, Naruto was unable to tell if it was truly a laugh he was hearing or simply the jumbled caw of the creatures facing him. His eyes fixed on the webbed feet of the nearest black bird.

"I didn't exactly expect you to be willing," Itachi's voice said, ringing out over the top of his laughter and Naruto found himself struggling to push his hands up over his ears. He clenched his teeth as the laughter became invasive, trying in vain to suppress a migraine growing up and out of the centre of his skull. It felt like his brain was engorging and that the bone cap was crushing the expanse, causing agony like never before.

And through that pain, Naruto was only able to register the set of glowing red within the eye of the closest un-feeling crow.

There was a pause.

The pain in his head was gone.

Naruto blinked and scanned the line of crows.

Except there were no black birds standing where they were a moment before, only the emptiness of the corridor and a single figure standing before him clad in bright orange. The eyes of the boy were downcast and his posture was defensive, angled away from Naruto like he might bolt if Naruto tried to step closer. Naruto simply stared at him, trying to figure out if he'd entered a genjutsu within a genjutsu – multi-layering of such a thing wasn't unheard of but it was tricky and Naruto chastised himself for falling for such a possibility.

The boy's breathing was slightly laboured, breaking the silence of the corridor as Naruto continued to fix him with an unflinching gaze. He was clearly distressed though the set of his jaw and the way he clenched his teeth, baring them, made it look like he was struggling to calm himself.

Naruto took a deep breath in, vastly uncomfortable with the apparition before him.

The boy represented a part of himself that Naruto wasn't entirely sure he wanted to remember, a time before he was truly acknowledged amongst his friends and comrades. He remembered looking into the mirror in the bathroom of his ramshackle apartment and seeing the hostile glint of a hardened survivor. Over the years and with acquiring some good friends, this glint had changed into something more positive – the depth in his eyes had transformed.

Naruto took a hesitant step towards the boy.

"Hey," he said softly, pulling a face when the kid flinched. "I don't suppose you could tell me where we are, how to get out?"

The younger Naruto met his eyes, blinking incredulously as he regarded the older. Naruto tried to put on his best disarming smile but this hardly seemed to placate the boy before him.

"You're like them aren't you," the kid bit out angrily, his eyes flashing red for a moment, the whisker marks on his face deepening and becoming elongated on his face.

Naruto knew what he was referring to and huffed unhappily – not particularly keen to relive the negative aspects of his past and filled with angst-ridden empathy for the boy fixing him with such a haunted gaze. He tried shaking his head to disagree with the boy's accusation but knew it would do no good.

"Guess I was more like Sasuke than I thought in the beginning," he muttered to himself.

Interestingly, it was like a light switch had been flicked for the boy in front of him, his eyes clearing of malice for a moment as he regarded the older Naruto.

"You know where Sasuke is?"

Naruto frowned, of course he knew where Sasuke was, why the hell didn't this kid?

* * *

Sasuke was sitting next to him in class working diligently through his math test with apathetic eyes. One of his elbows was resting on the desk; the sleeves of his school shirt were pulled up so far they were covering the pale palms of his hands. His head rested on his partially closed fist, a dark bang falling forward to trail along the delicate line of his jaw as he wrote out the answer to the next problem with practiced ease.

Naruto eyed him warily in his peripheral vision, feeling his chest constrict as he watched Sasuke's biro moving fluidly across the paper. He had never had much luck with maths. He'd heard maths being called the universal language, something everybody could understand but whoever said that must have been bullshitting because to Naruto, it just seemed like gobbledygook.

He chanced reading through the first problem on his own paper but the words churned through him uselessly until all he was left with was a further devolving panic. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and ran a hand through his blonde tresses.

He tried again.

"Oi dobe," Sasuke's hissed voice startled him and he jumped in his seat, only realising that he'd practically bitten through the plastic of his own biro whilst freaking out about the first problem when the pen clattered to the floor by his feet. He smiled at their maths teacher, Kurenai, before bending down, retrieving the pen and straightening.

A few seconds passed as Kurenai watched him through waspishly sharp eyes before she returned to reading her book while the class continued to work.

"What?" Naruto muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Sasuke let his head roll off of his partially closed fist, a movement that made it seem like he was about to stretch out stiff joints. At the same moment, he edged his own paper slightly with his elbow, turning it so it was at a better angle for Naruto to read. Naruto couldn't quite believe it. Sasuke Uchiha, the school's most popular pretty boy and genius was offering to help his number 1 loudmouthed rival out of a fix?

He must have been freaking out worse than he thought.

He threw Sasuke a suspicious glance, allowing his eyes to narrow at the boy beside him before leaning in to take a peek. If he didn't like what he saw or he suspected anything funny, he could always go back to having a panic attack after all.

His eyes widened when he saw the answer to the first problem.

His heart turned over painfully in his chest.

The problem read:

'A squared + 325 divided by 3/50 = **Power'**

Naruto's breaths were short and sharp as he turned his full attention to Sasuke's paper, quickly skim reading through the next set of problems. The blood coursing through him seemed to become prickly as he realised that Sasuke had put the same answer for every problem.

Feeling a bizarre mix of outrage and serious concern for the boy beside him, he opened his mouth to confront his rival but the look in Sasuke's eyes as vibrant blue met emotionless black stopped him cold.

* * *

Power is the answer to all problems.

* * *

He didn't think he would ever get over the sheer, wonderful smell of ramen and Ichiraku's was the best. Kakashi sat beside him, the one treating after their most recently failed mission to bring Sasuke back to the Hidden Leaf. Sakura sat on his other side, dejectedly lost in her own world. The mood of the meal was a little too sombre for Naruto's tastes – they'd failed a mission, it wasn't like someone had died.

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto called out in a sing song voice before digging into his noodles, slurping contentedly whilst Sakura simply stared into the depths of her bowl.

Naruto spared her a glance as he relished his first few bites and then turned to Kakashi, wanting to voice something that had been bothering him for the past few minutes.

"Kakashi-sensei…do you…have you ever had a lucid dream?"

Kakashi had been lazily regarding the girl behind the counter at Ichiraku's as she boiled the next pack of noodles but at the strange question, allowed his one visible eye to drop down to his puzzled student.

"Oh?" Kakashi said by the way of urging Naruto to continue.

"It's just because…" Naruto set his chop sticks over his half finished bowl of ramen, contemplating the egg that sat just below the viscous surface of the broth. "I think I might be trapped in a genjutsu but honestly, it doesn't feel right. I know the idea of genjutsu is that you're not supposed to be aware of the illusion but once you realise it, you generally realise it for good right?"

He glanced up at Kakashi to make sure his teacher was following him, feeling vaguely embarrassed at voicing what could be just his own stupid musings. Though he didn't mind being called an idiot for the idle comments that passed his lips, he didn't appreciate it for the more perplexing thoughts he sometimes had.

"I think I keep forgetting that this isn't real…and if I keep forgetting that, then this can't be a genjutsu can it? Even Itachi can't make you forget once you realise it, right?"

Kakashi's eye had widened in thoughtful surprise and, to Naruto's delight, he seemed to take a moment to consider his answer. Beside him, Naruto felt as Sakura leant forward slightly, waiting for their mentor's response.

"That's a tricky one," Kakashi admitted. "Itachi's abilities are somewhat unknown so I honestly couldn't tell you if he could make you forget. The truly terrifying thing about a well executed genjutsu is that it can warp a person's true sense of reality. In extreme cases, people can't find their way back to what is real and even if they do, they can never be sure that what they're experiencing isn't another genjutsu."

Naruto took a moment to absorb this information, his lips pulling down at the corners as a niggling feeling of not quite panic bloomed in his gut.

"Hm…I'm pretty sure this isn't real."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked, giving Naruto a confused look. "How can this not be real?"

Naruto simply shook his head.

"Don't know, but it's not."

* * *

These were corridors that he knew well. He knew the chipped metal walls and placements of the grates above him. He knew the slowly turning extractor fans set into the walls ahead of him, allowing a trickle of harsh yellow light to filter through from the outside world to illuminate his path. He knew the narrow windows set up high in the building allowing more of that disconcerting light in. He knew the feel of the water around his ankles as he waded into the main room.

The back wall was still set up with the formidable iron cast bars of the Kyuubi cage, the air beyond those bars was still pitch black. Naruto could feel the presence of the demon fox's malevolent chakra and as always, he felt himself start to react with the maddening desire to take flight and run until he could run no more. Of course, being Uzumaki Naruto, he was never one to give in to cowardly instincts. He glared defiantly at the flimsy looking piece of paper stuck fast to the bars of the cage, reading the word 'seal' in bold characters and unfamiliar hand-writing.

A low chuckle escaped from somewhere deep within the darkness of that cage, a colossal, rumbling sound that made the hairs on the back of Naruto's neck stand on end. He took a purposeful step forward, unable as always to acknowledge his own fear of this legendary apparition and watched warily as the Kyuubi's distinct red chakra began to leak outwards, turning the water flooding the floor of the room into a heat trap.

The fluid lapping at his ankles began to bubble.

"I don't want to use your power," Naruto said stubbornly, unable to quite recall why he would need to use the Kyuubi's power in the first place but then why else was he here? He only ever came here if he was in some sort of mortal peril. Abruptly, the chuckling ceased and Naruto felt the sudden pressure change in the air as the free-flowing malignant chakra leaking out from the cage condensed, being pulled rapidly inward until he was looking into the gargantuan face of the fox wearing it's usual devious grin. It's red eyes reflected madness, fire and vengeance as Naruto scowled.

"**I should have known that the Uchiha brat would be the one to cause a disturbance,**" the kyuubi said, it's voice old and arrogant. The certainty with which he spoke made Naruto balk – it was always weird to hear the voice of a timeless monster, so knowledgeable, so intimidating.

Naruto didn't care.

"Sasuke? What are you talking about?"

He wondered if he was engaged in battle with Sasuke at the moment, if they'd finally met to have a re-match after all the years that had passed since the Valley of the End. He wondered why he couldn't remember. Had Sasuke knocked him out again? Was he here seeking out the demon's power so that he could prevent his best friend from disappearing again?

If possible, the grin on the face of the grinning demon widened. It's eyes flashed with sick excitement. Just as Naruto was about to demand to be let in on the secret, there was another pronounced pull on the air and the chakra condensed further. The face of the fox melted before him, reforming into something smaller in the depths of the cage.

Naruto felt the water around his ankles start to solidify as the heat from the Kyuubi's chakra left it. He edged forward to escape being frozen in place, squinting through the darkness to try and make out the distinctive features of this new Kyuubi.

Worryingly, as Naruto's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see the edges of the paper seal plastered to the bars of the cage start to fray.

"**As much as you want to deny it, you and I have always been the same boy.**"

The Kyuubi's voice still echoed across the vast expanse of the room, still sounding as though it belonged to an elephantine creature. It didn't fit the silhouetted, humanoid image that Naruto could just make it shifting in the depth of the cage. He felt a surge of petulance somewhere deep in his gut as the demon accused them of being the same, a bitter, warping sense of disgust and anger clouding his judgement.

"I'm nothing like you! I'm not a monster!" he spat, drawing back on one foot and snarling openly.

The Kyuubi's answer was to step into the dim pool of light as the shadows in the room shifted.

Naruto suppressed the whimper climbing up through his throat.

He was looking into the wide, blank eyes of his 4 tails form, watching the jagged grin splitting the Kyuubi's mouth in half, staring at the red and black energy skittering frantically across the Kyuubi's skin.

"**Who am I to argue with the likes of Uzumaki Naruto?**" the fox questioned in a mocking tone, baiting the boy before him. Naruto winced at the sound of his name and dropped into a defensive stance as the 4 tailed apparition began to pace slowly behind the bars. The seal on the cage was starting to appear more weathered and Naruto tried to think frantically of something that would re-enforce the demon's imprisonment.

The demon paused as Naruto reached into his pouch for one of his kunai.

"**I think I'll enjoy living your life for a while before I set about destroying the world.**"

An unnerved shiver ran along the length of Naruto's spine, causing the small of his back to tingle in discomfort as he digested those words. Just as he was about to ask the fox to elaborate, the 4 tails seemed to shed it's demon skin, the red and black peeling away in tiny flurries to reveal tan flesh beneath, familiar whisker masks, tufts of blonde hair…

Naruto watched in horror as the Kyuubi became himself, standing on the dark side of the cage grinning his insane grin with eyes the reeked of death and hopelessness.

The Kyuubi laughed and Naruto made the mistake of blinking.

When he opened his eyes, he was the one standing in the cage, feeling the weight of seal pressing into him while the Kyuubi, still with the appearance of Naruto himself, stood outside it triumphantly, a few wayward chakra tails swishing agitatedly behind him.

"**Who's the monster now kit?**" the fox asked rhetorically through a barely suppressed chortle.

* * *

The sun beat down over the school yard like the fire of an unrelenting Furness. Naruto was pretty certain that if he had an egg on him right now, he could crack it and fry it on the metal piping of the air vents jutting over the school roof where he was currently sat picking his way through a few plain rice balls. Below, he could hear the sounds of the sports clubs as people shouted urgent instructions to each other in whatever game they were playing and the leaves of the trees rustled as a light breeze wafted past, cooling the sweat underneath Naruto's plain head band.

He lay back in his singular shaded patch, using his back pack as a pillow and contemplating taking a brief nap as he watched the marshmallow clouds breaking up the endless blue of the midday sky. For once, he agreed with Shikamaru, cloud watching was bliss.

Just as he was angling his head slightly to better see the outline of a fox in the clouds, the door to the roof swung open and light footsteps started towards him. Naruto smiled easily as Sasuke's irritable face loomed above him, appreciating Sasuke's appearance against the serene back drop of the clouds above him.

"Hn, dobe, it's your turn to clean up the art room today," the pompous older boy explained starkly, his trademark broodiness completely unaffected by the beauty of the day.

Naruto yawned lazily, throwing his arms out beside him so he could maximise the surface area available to feel the breeze. Above him, Sasuke's eyes darkened subtly.

"You're such a useless slacker, you're worse than fucking Nara," the Uchiha complained.

Naruto ignored him, frowning as he realised that Sasuke was still wearing his school jumper and not sweating at all. Did the guy not have glands? His hair was still perfectly soft and smooth, glinting like onyx in the glaring light of the noonday sun with a subtle under hint of blue.

"What are you staring at?" Sasuke's stand-offish question cut through his revelry and he blinked to clear the haze that settled over his eyes, allowing his smile to turn cheeky as he observed Sasuke's uncomfortable posture.

"Just wondering how you can be so damn miserable on a day like today," Naruto said, breathing in the deep, rich scent of heat on the air. He enjoyed watching the flash of real pertinacious anger on the face of the stuck up Uchiha and almost laughed when Sasuke let out a feral growl.

"Idiot," he ground out, pivoting in his smart school shoes and making to stalk back inside. Normally, the familiar word would have gotten a rise out of Naruto but he just laughed gleefully, in too much a good mood to let Sasuke's attitude get to him today and on a whim, he reached out to clasp Sasuke's hand before he could leave, pulling the prickly bastard down with him until the taller boy was laying with his head on his chest.

He felt Sasuke stiffen and before his rival could make a big deal out of it, he threw his tanned arm around the rigid shoulders, holding him in place.

"Lighten up k? Forget everything for a moment and just let the world revolve around you," Naruto said sleepily, turning his attention to the clouds once more.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. Sasuke remained as still as a statue and despite how relaxed he felt, Naruto's heart pounded oddly against his rib cage. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the top of Sasuke's head, the individual strands of dark hair that made up that impressive duck butt style.

"I-idiot," Sasuke repeated in a barely audible mumble but he made no move to get up and break the contact.

Naruto let out a single laugh and re-focussed his attention on the feel of the breeze as it travelled over his skin, tousling his hair. After a few minutes, he felt Sasuke relax in his grip and he shifted himself, looking down to catch a glimpse of the expression on the bastard's face.

He wasn't expecting to see the look of awed contentment on the face of the older boy, wasn't expecting him to close his eyes as the breeze brushed his bangs from his face, revelling in the feel of the wind on a hot day. His eyes almost popped out of his skull as Sasuke let out a tiny, crooked smile when he heard a couple of students hanging out by the wall below them, talking fondly about the antics of one of their delinquent friends.

When the bell sounded to signal the end of lunch period, Naruto made to get up, surprised that Sasuke had stayed with him for the whole hour even if it had been silent but when he made to move, he could feel Sasuke's limp head against his chest and when he glanced down to check on his rival, he found himself looking into the serene face of sleep.

He couldn't believe it at first, honestly couldn't believe it.

Sasuke had fallen asleep on his chest.

Sasuke who was haphephobic most of the time, who didn't let anyone touch him for more than a few minutes had_ fallen asleep on the chest of Uzumaki Naruto._

His mischievous mind whirled with the tantalising thought of black mail material but as he really looked at the vulnerable face of the older teen, he could see the black bruises discolouring the rim of his eyes and all thoughts of causing trouble just seemed to fall away.

He probably hadn't been getting enough sleep recently.

Sasuke made an involuntary noise as Naruto moved back down, settling himself as he had been before with his bag under his head but didn't wake. The steady rise and fall of his back beneath Naruto's fingers lulled him into a docile state and he stayed like that until the end of the school day when Sasuke was finally roused by the shouts of the kids starting to make their way home.

At first, Sasuke was disorientated but when he realised where he was, resting with his head on Naruto's warm chest, listening to the steady thrumming pulse of his heart, he drew back as though realising he'd been asleep in a forest fire.

Naruto simply watched him out of curious eyes, wondering how he was going to handle the realisation that he'd been there almost all day. If this situation was even slightly different, Naruto would probably tease him to increase his embarrassment but something in the way Sasuke was obviously freaking out stopped him.

"We…were…we were-…Naruto, you…"

"You alright?" Naruto asked warily, heaving himself up into a sitting position and massaging out the crick in his neck. "You slept for a long time, we missed 5th period."

Sasuke froze in place, an ominous air swirling around him as Naruto stood, dusting himself off. Usually, he would try to match Sasuke's intimidation with his own defiance but today, it hardly seemed to be affecting him. He felt no need to respond to Sasuke's distress.

"You…let me sleep there through 5th period? You didn't wake me?" Sasuke asked in a menacing voice, his eyes promising death and destruction as he watched Naruto bend down to pick up his back pack. Sasuke was a stickler for the rules and took his education way too seriously. As far as Naruto was concerned, it was only healthy to bunk once in a while.

"You looked like you needed the rest more than you needed whatever mind-scarring Kakashi was gonna inflict on us," Naruto said with a small shrug. When Sasuke refused to drop the 'I'm going to kill you' glare, Naruto simply waved and started on his way to the stairwell. A few seconds later, he heard the off kilter rhythm of Sasuke's slightly longer strides as he too decided that it was time to get off of the roof.

As Naruto's hand gripped the handle of the door, he felt the light touch of Sasuke's fingers on the back of his palm and the shiver that ran through him had nothing to do with the colder air of the coming afternoon.

"You will tell no-one of this," Sasuke hissed darkly in Naruto's ear as he pushed open the fire door and strode passed Naruto, shoving his hands into his pockets as he descended the first set of stairs. Naruto was left staring after him, his eyes wide as he tried to ignore the phantom feel of Sasuke's breath on the ridge of his ear.

Below him, Sasuke was just turning to start down the next stairwell when he glanced up, catching Naruto's eye. He opened his mouth once and then closed it again, his dark eyes hesitant. Eventually, he seemed to succeed in mustering up some kind of courage because he let out one tiny, cautious smile and said:

"Thank you Naruto."

* * *

He stood against the waterfall at the Valley of the End, beneath the shadow of the 1st Hokage wiping at the trail of blood that ran down his chin, splattering on the surface of the water like oil before dissipating.

Sasuke stood across from him, balanced on the water with the red sharingan spinning wildly. Despite the killing intent radiating off of his rival, the words he had said reverberated through the caverns of Naruto's mind, making him more determined than ever to match him, to beat him.

"_You are my closest friend."_

Naruto made a hand sign and allowed his chakra to disperse to the shadow clone that appeared alongside him. Holding his hand out behind him, he began gathering the spinning chakra whilst the clone handled the directional push and pull needed to create a Rasengan. Opposite him, he watched as Sasuke clutched his outstretched hand and as lightning started crackling along the length of his arm, running through the conductive surface of the water.

This was going to be a clash like never before – something that Naruto had never foreseen happening when he'd finally joined the ranks of Konoha shinobi. He had developed this technique to match Sasuke's chidori and to protect himself from the brother that Sasuke had almost been crushed by when he'd started his journey with the legendary Jiraiya. Never in a million years had he ever contemplated the idea of having to use it on Sasuke to drag him away from the edge of all encompassing darkness.

The flash of static blue light alerted him to the fact that Sasuke's attack was ready and his shadow clone disappeared in a whiff of white smoke. Angling himself back, he felt the build up of momentum in his limbs and charged forward with a strangled battle cry, pouring his feelings into this moment, the need to bring Sasuke back for both Sakura and himself, the anxiety he felt when he pictured the consequences that could arise if he failed, the belief that Sasuke could be saved even if it was against his will.

He didn't count on Sasuke veering himself to the side at the last moment.

He barely had time to react before something…

Painful, explosive, eruptive agony.

Comprehension of major life threatening damage, his organs threatening to shut down from the shock alone and then all-encompassing agony. Agony so profound that it seeped into the air, tainting it, making it difficult to breathe, to exist.

He hung limply from Sasuke's jutting fist, his eyes wide, unseeing for a moment.

The attack had pierced his rib cage on the right side, had penetrated his lung and had slipped through sinew and bone until Sasuke's hand met fresh air through his back. Blood did not flow freely from the gaping hole, Naruto's world went a brilliant white and something violent surged up from within him. In a moment, he was vomiting thick, tar like blood. It dribbled down his chin into the collar of his jacket.

Only then did the wound in his chest start bleeding.

Sasuke's expression had hardly changed and the tomoe of his sharingan were hard in cold eyes. He looked like he was expecting something to happen, like he was waiting to be praised for killing the monster of the Hidden Leaf but…he had called Naruto his closest friend…

_How could he honestly try to kill him like this?_

Naruto was only able to grasp onto a single thought as his mind threatened to shut down permanently and he held on to it with everything he was worth as his hand shot out to grip the arm still protruding garishly from his chest, covered in his quickly oxidising blood. Red chakra started to pool around him as he inadvertently called on the Kyuubi's power to help him because…

This just wasn't Sasuke.

Sasuke may have been his rival, may have found him nothing but an annoyance but he would never _ever _try to kill him.

He obviously wasn't in his right mind at the moment.

And Naruto would be damned if he failed in saving his friend.

There was a shock wave, a momentary silence and then a boom blasted out from the hot spot of chakra that was the damaged Naruto. Sasuke felt an intense, maleficent pressure on his system but before he could get a good grip on the dobe, the epicentre, he was blown backwards across the water, his arm slipping out of his rival's chest with a sickening squelch.

When he managed to right himself, he found himself looking at an entirely different ninja. Naruto who was standing with his feet wide on the water and his arms crossed in front of himself. Naruto who's fingernails had suddenly grown in hyper drive, who's eyes were as red as his own and had narrowed into cat-like slits. Naruto who's canines seemed longer when he bared his teeth at his opponent, who's whisker marks seemed to have become much more prominent.

The excess chakra seemed to form a physical shield around him and Sasuke could do nothing but marvel, watching in something akin to fright as the loose muscle tissue, sinew and bone in his chest began to sew itself back together again in hyper speed.

He'd known that Naruto was a quick healer but this…

_This was hellish._

"What are you?" he blurted out, sensing the chakra around his rival starting to move _by itself. _It appeared to be entirely separate to Naruto himself who was standing stock still in the middle of the turmoil. Was this some sort of twisted blood-line limit that the village had overlooked because Naruto was known to be such an idiot?

Naruto's fire red eyes found his and for a split second, they reverted back to the deep blue that Sasuke knew.

"I'm your friend," Naruto said simply and with that, he released the power he'd been holding back and darted forward.

* * *

"Sasuke-teme, why did you try to kill me?"

"…I don't know."

"Was it for power?"

"…Hn."

"Why is power so important?"

"…because I need it to kill _him_."

"I don't think I like that answer."

…

"It doesn't matter what you think."

"…I know."

* * *

_Theories on what's real and what's not? A wish to express sheer feelings of 'WTF'? A comment burning a hole in your head?_

_Why not leave a review?_


	2. Second Hour

_AN: Mass update today due to being away for most of the weekend and not around at all on Thursday. Most of this chapter was inspired by a song called 'Little Bird' by Imogen Heap. Great song._

_Thanks to everyone that read! _

* * *

**Second Hour**

Naruto sat still before the cascading rush of toad oil behind him with his legs tucked beneath him and his hands pressed together in an unconventional seal before him. Normally when he meditated like this to absorb senjutsu chakra, his eyes remained closed to better visualise the gentle push of the natural energy around him but at the moment, his eyes were open and alert, sifting through a spectrum of colours from his usual brilliant blue to the electric yellow of sage mode.

The old frog was watching him with a critical eye, his stick at the ready for the moment that Naruto's chakra gathering went awry. Naruto tried not to keep his focus on the old toad for too long. If he was ever going to figure out how to gather senjutsu chakra whilst moving, he had start with keeping his eyes open.

His breathing was shallow, irregular, a by-product of becoming still enough to succeed in attaining sage mode. He could almost feel the blood roaring in his ears and with that dull roar, over the general white background noise that surrounded the Hidden country of the toads, a bizarre ticking that was decidedly off-beat with the thudding of his heart.

_WHACK._

The sudden violent build up of momentum as he fell face forward over the steps leading up to the toad oil pool felt somewhat alarming after he'd sat still for so long and he felt the impact of the hard ground on his cheek as he angled his head to save his nose acutely. The sting in his cheek was only matched by the sting of the bump on his head where the old toad had hit him before he could transform into a frog and petrify. For a moment, he simply lay in the dust, feeling a build up of frustration and turning it, as he'd learnt to do over the years, into determination to overcome this road block – energy better put to use in a positive light.

When he next sat up, the old toad was looking at him with an expression that Naruto honestly couldn't identify, a weird mix of pity, awe and faint amusement.

"You know, I bet I'd look really cool as a frog," Naruto joked with a wide grin, feeling at the fair sized lump on the back of his head.

The old toad just stared at him which was pretty creepy considering how large his eyes were, not to mention the weird sideways set of his pupils. He knew he had the same eyes himself in sage mode but there was no harm in admitting that it freaked him out just a little.

When Naruto was about to question the blatant staring, because the old frog was usually the chatty sort and never went in for long stretches of introspective silence, the old frog held up his hand to interrupt and simply beckoned for Naruto to follow him instead.

Naruto frowned, more than a little unnerved but followed the frog's guide with Gamakichi at his back.

They walked for a good half hour through the forests of giant green and red leaves and Naruto found himself wishing idly that he'd thought to bring his T-shirt. The sun was hot in the sky, beating out relentlessly until Naruto was covered in a thin film of sweat and was burnt quite badly on a random spot over his chest despite the erratic patches of shade offered by the oversized leaves. After a while, the foliage thinned out until they were walking across the more deserted dust plains where Naruto had originally learnt to sit still atop a concrete block balanced precariously on the needle point of the tallest rocks.

Eventually, a building came into visual range, a vast temple like structure carved into the sheer side of a mountain with frog statues framing the entrance way and an inordinate number of steps to clamber up. As they drew closer, Naruto could see the heavy support beams painted a dark red – reminding him briefly of Sasuke's sharingan and a few golden sculptures sitting comfortably in a small shrine or two. The expression on the face of the closest frog statue caught his wavering attention as they continued to move closer and Naruto wondered with a barely suppressed shudder if the frog carvings were more petrified ninjas.

"Oi, what is this old timer?" Naruto asked as they climbed up the first set of chipped stone steps and fell into the darkness of the overhanging roof just before the entranceway.

As a rule, Naruto had only visited a handful of large temples throughout his life. Most of the time, he had only been permitted entrance because it was for his current ninja mission or the place had been abandoned previously so it was useful for them to hide out there. Jinchuuriki were, as a rule, generally not welcome in such places so as the threshold of the temple came in sight, Naruto hesitated, fixing the ancient frog with a hesitant look.

When the old frog realised he was no longer being followed, he turned, regarding Naruto through wide, unreadable eyes before doubling back and turning so he was facing away from the boy, dropping his robe to reveal the message that Jiraiya had burnt into his skin using chakra in his final moments. It was an action designed to strengthen the resolve of his student and Naruto saw it for it was immediately.

He stared hard at the numbers on the old frog's back.

The numbers left behind after his master had…

His eyes widened as he realised that the numbers had changed, that the whole message had changed since he'd last seen it in the Hidden Leaf and, squatting low to get a closer look, he frowned when he realised he was looking at something blatantly familiar but aggravatingly, he couldn't put his finger on where he'd seen this before.

The message read:

'A squared + 325 divided by 3/50'

Naruto felt his face start to ache as his frown deepened and absently, he started biting the nail of his thumb. Disjointed thoughts tumbled through him as he tried to filter through what he knew of Jiraiya's written work, associating it in the same way they had previously when Sikamaru had been in command of deciphering the code to the new bizarre numbers that the old frog had revealed to him.

Mentally, he accessed every written word he could, cross-referencing page numbers, sentences and singular words until he thought he had the new message, his heart skipping a beat as it all came together like a jigsaw puzzle suddenly falling into place:

'_Where is Uchiha Sasuke?_'

With the realisation of this new, cryptic message came an almost ludicrously strong base desire to progress in his training. He stood on impulse and took a step over the threshold of the temple.

* * *

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light levels and he winced, throwing his hand up as he walked into the boy's locker room to shield his eyes. The overhead luminescence was irking him more than usual today, causing the headache that had bloomed up behind his eyes to spike uncomfortably and he grumbled as he dropped his bag into place, allowing himself to fall forward onto the set of lockers before him so the cool of the metal soothed at the budding discomfort.

He allowed himself to tune out for a couple of seconds, frowning when he was sure he could hear the faint but recognisable clap of feet hitting the hard floors of the upstairs corridors.

Although that was impossible…even if the other students were really gunning it, he shouldn't be able to hear the sound through-

"Dobe?"

Naruto started as he registered Sasuke's sharp voice, turning slightly so he was facing his rival with bleary eyes. He took a deep breath in when he caught sight of the dark haired boy regarding him suspiciously, feeling the stinging heat in his cheeks.

"What's wrong with you?" Sasuke demanded, halfway through pulling the vest he usually wore for sports activities over his head.

Naruto simply glowered at him, wondering if this was a trick question. He knew he looked awful, he'd had the pleasure of taking in his haggard appearance this morning before dragging himself out to school but he was sick, what did Sasuke expect?

"Mn," Naruto muttered by the way of a verbal response designed to get Sasuke to stop pestering him. He wasn't in the mood for their usual games today and this must have registered with Sasuke because the expression on his pale face flittered into something a little foreign, something that Naruto hadn't really seen before.

Fear of contagion perhaps?

Naruto decided that he was in no condition to care and made to turn back to face the locker, mustering up the energy to start getting changed but the feel of firm fingers gripping his chin made him freeze. He had barely enough time to blink in surprise before Sasuke had forced his head back round and Naruto was met with the infinitely dark depths of patented Uchiha scrutiny.

Seconds passed.

Naruto could hear his heart slamming against his chest.

He didn't like to be touched.

Sasuke's fingers were too cold.

"Tch, you're sick," Sasuke withdrew his fingers and his eyebrow flinched unconsciously as he watched Naruto's ragged intake of breath.

"Really sick," he said, his voice hinting at something that Naruto couldn't place either. He contemplated scowling at his perfect rival but instead simply turned his head away as he'd originally intended to, allowing the coolness of the metal locker door to settle the aggravation in his head a little.

"No shit Sherlock," he muttered bitterly.

As usual, Sasuke ignored his hostile attitude, finishing his task of getting ready for P.E before moving closer to Naruto and pushing his shoulder so his blonde companion was facing him. Naruto found himself staring at far too close lips as Sasuke reached up to place a cold hand to his forehead. Involuntarily, Naruto leaned into the touch, sighing slightly as the temperature of Sasuke's hand combated the heat coursing through his system like a forest fire.

Not that he really cared to notice but Sasuke's bottom lip was particularly full and shining slightly in the overhead light.

It looked…inviting.

Which was weird.

"Why didn't you stay home today?" Sasuke asked and his voice was light, like he didn't want anyone to hear him ask.

Probably didn't want to be seen showing concern for someone so stupid.

Naruto felt a spike of something unpleasant in his gut, a combination of being reminded exactly why he hadn't stayed home and the idea of Sasuke trying to keep his possible concern quiet, and scowled darkly, pulling back from the pleasurable feel of cold hands against fever heated skin. He knew that his movements were too defensive, too much of a giveaway to how unsettled he was by having someone question his existence outside of school but currently, he was too sick to care about expelling the effort to keep up nonchalant appearances.

"People don't believe me when I call in sick," Naruto told him simply, hoping that would end all further chatter on the matter.

Interestingly, Sasuke didn't react to that at all how Naruto would have expected him to. He watched in vague fascination as Sasuke's face grew darker, then overtly angry. The lean muscles below his vest bulged slightly as he tensed, almost as though he was preparing for a fight and Naruto felt a flash of fear thrum through him. Would Sasuke try and fight him while he was sick like this? Just because he thought Naruto's reasons for coming to school whilst sick were stupid?

Automatically, he braced himself for a hit, trying to ignore the wave of spots that washed over his vision as adrenaline tried to force its way through his battered system.

When his eyes cleared, Sasuke's expression had changed once again, back to that foreign set but a lot stronger than before. Naruto really wished he had the social practice to decipher what that look meant. Sasuke was hesitant now as he reached out to grab Naruto's arm though once he had it, his grip was firm and without further communication, he lead Naruto out of the locker room and into the hall, ushering him up the stairs towards the library.

"Huh? Wh-

"You can't do P.E in this condition, you'll pass out," Sasuke said simply, refusing to meet Naruto's flustered blue eyes.

Naruto really wanted to argue, to convince Sasuke that he could handle himself just fine, that he wasn't weak or a burden or anything less than Sasuke himself but instead, all that came out was:

"If I miss P.E then it'll get back to them and I'll…"

Damnit, why did he have to sound so weak? In front of Sasuke of all people? Why did being sick make him feel so pathetic?

He expected Sasuke to gloat at him or tell him off for being stupid. Instead, Sasuke simply grunted, pulling him through the doors into the main building and continuing along the corridor to the library.

"I'll cover for you," he said simply.

Naruto could do nothing but stare.

Sasuke would cover for him?

Sasuke his arch rival and nemesis. Sasuke who hated his guts more than anyone else in the school. Sasuke who took it upon himself to make Naruto's life a living nightmare…

Uchiha Sasuke was going to cover for him.

Neither Sasuke, nor Naruto, said another word until the two of them entered the library, Naruto staggering a little as he tried to keep up with Sasuke's relentless pace. The girl at the library counter gave Sasuke a pleasantly surprised grin as he sauntered towards her and Naruto found himself awash with envy because he was only ever greeted with disgust or disdain.

"He's sick," Sasuke told her, jabbing his thumb at Naruto who tried to look like he wasn't swaying uncertainly on his feet. "He needs to stay in here for P.E."

"Oh…uh…right," the girl said, sparing a glance at Naruto who tried his best to look disarming. "You should be sure to let your teacher know when you-

"Yeah yeah," Sasuke snapped, earning him a spluttered end of sentence and a vaguely embarrassed head dip from the girl at the counter. He stalked back to Naruto, grabbing hold of his arm once more and leading him to a table at the back of the library still stacked high with a few A Level poetry volumes. Naruto found himself staring hard at the pale skin of Sasuke's hand, watching the way his hand connected to the delicate indent of his wrist and comparing it with his own sturdier form.

"Do you have brittle bones?" Naruto asked through a slight slur as he was deposited in one of the library chairs.

"What?" Sasuke asked, giving him a puzzled frown.

"Just because your wrists are so thin," Naruto commented idly. "Mine are different."

"Not everyone's built the same," Sasuke told him quietly, pausing for a moment in thought before adding: "You sound delusional, might want to work on that before lunch if you actually insist on staying for the whole day."

Without allowing for further comment, Sasuke released Naruto's arm and started to manoeuvre back around the tables in the near empty library towards the exit. Naruto didn't appreciate the rush of heat that flooded to the blissfully cold area left behind after Sasuke had attached to him and a disconcerting thought occurred to him in that moment. The scrape of the chair on the floor of the library sounded oddly familiar as he stood; the sound catching Sasuke's attention enough for him to glance back.

"Come and get me for lunch?" Naruto asked, his voice a little bit more desperate than he would have liked.

Sasuke blinked in apparent shock for a couple of seconds and Naruto's expression faltered as he tried to work out what was weird about what he just asked. Then he realised what it sounded like and was grateful for the fever probably hiding his blush.

"Uh…I just meant so I knew what time it was…not that I should actually sit-

"Sure."

Sasuke's casual, monosyllabic affirmative stopped Naruto in his verbal tracks and made him glance up in plain disbelief.

Maybe he really was delusional.

Had Sasuke really just said that he would come and get him for lunch? As a general unspoken rule, Naruto ate lunch with nobody, usually on the roof in the warmer months away from prying eyes and the bullies that tended to flock him. Sasuke was always bombarded with invitations to eat lunch with some of the prettier girls in their year but generally chose to eat lunch with a small group of the same people every day.

He opened his mouth to ask if he'd heard right but Sasuke had already turned back round and was heading for the door at a slightly brisker pace, not even sparing Naruto a backwards glance as he left to get back to class. The door to the library clicked shut behind him in a weird sense of finality

Naruto stared at the door for a good 5 minutes before sniffing loudly and grinning to himself, sinking low in his seat. He wasn't exactly sure if he expected the Uchiha to follow through on his affirmation and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable allowing himself to feel…

…_elated…_

But…it was so hard, with his optimistic outlook on life, to try and curb the excitement, to hold himself back in case he was disappointed.

He sighed, running a hand through thick blonde tresses. The slight squirming of unpleasantness in his system alerted him to the fact that this weird sense of euphoria wasn't mixing very well with the dizziness initiated by his illness. He needed to not agonise over this for the hour he had in the library, despite how tempting it was to just sit and analyse what had transpired today between himself and his rival.

It was…a little unprecedented.

And not entirely unwelcome.

He glanced up through glassy eyes to see if the girl was still sitting at the library counter but, weirdly, she seemed to have disappeared – gone to the back room to sort out some photo copies or something. He needed something to occupy himself if he was going to try and stop his head from devolving into small cognitive circles of thought surrounding Sasuke's not quite promise to retrieve him after P.E so, on a whim, he picked up one of the poetry anthologies, thumbing through the thick pages.

As his fingers ran along the sharp edges of each page, only a few rambled pieces of verse filtered into his system until he stopped on one in particular that caught his eye.

* * *

When the tree leaves dance, one shall find flames.

The fire's shadow will illuminate the village,

And once again…

The tree leaves shall bud anew.

* * *

This time when he set eyes on Itachi's spinning sharingan, he was flanked on either side by a pair of shadow clones. He was instantly aware that he was trapped within a genjutsu and had the slightly off-putting feeling in the back of his mind that he had been in the genjutsu for a while before realising.

He was afraid of taking his eyes off of the Uchiha but he wanted to check on the state of his clones. On one side, he could feel the gathering of senjutsu chakra alerting him to the fact that one of his clones was trying to enter sage mode and on the other side, he could feel a frantic, almost malevolent chakra radiating outwards to wrap around his surroundings as his other clone accessed the dormant powers of the fox demon.

He purposefully kept his gaze fixed on the red of Itachi's eyes.

"I know this is a genjutsu," Naruto said, by the way of opening a conversation pathway. Not that simply realising that this was a genjutsu was going to help him in any way.

Itachi raised a perfect eyebrow and Naruto felt something move in his chest as he realised just how much this apparition resembled his lost best friend. Just like Sasuke, though his eyes were sanguine, they didn't radiate the kind of killing intent that Naruto associated with true evil. He had none of the malice that Pain had carried with him though the hurt reflected there was the same.

If anything, he seemed indifferent, maybe slightly disapproving at Naruto's choice of words and this more than anything allowed Naruto to straighten, dropping his defensive stance. On one side, the clone gathering senjutsu chakra also straightened. The clone accessing the foxes chakra remained slightly crouched, baring his teeth and growling imperceptibly. Naruto threw him a brief sideways glance before turning back to Itachi.

"I think I'm here to ask you a question," he said, surprising himself by his bizarre choice of words. The way he'd said that almost made it sound like he didn't think _Itachi _was the instigator of this genjutsu. But if not Itachi, then who? Sasuke?

Itachi's eyebrow lowered on his forehead, his expression cleared. His eyes spun mercilessly and Naruto thought he could hear the faint echo of crows calling to one another in the back of his mind.

"What exactly do you want with me?" Naruto asked.

Itachi didn't answer for a moment, continuing to fix him with a relentless stare. Naruto found himself wishing that the guy would just blink.

When he opened his mouth, all three Narutos leant forward as one to catch the words.

"You're the only one that can save…Sasuke…"

Naruto felt his breath hitch in his throat. His heart thumped heavily against his chest and he felt his eyes widen. Beside him, the clone accessing the foxes chakra let out a lower growl and the chakra around him started bubbling. Naruto tried not to choke on the sudden heat in the air.

He had only another moment to acknowledge the intensifying colour in Itachi's eyes before the ground dropped out beneath him and both clones. All three of them fell into darkness as Itachi stood above them on nothing but air and as Naruto felt his clones dissipate, he was bombarded with a rush of senjutsu chakra and the chakra of the demon fox.

* * *

There was an explosion of air and water. His eyes burst open as he was thrown back by the force of the two elements and his stomach flipped up into his throat as he freefell down into the pool situated below the bridge he was using to train on with an impressive splash. The feel of the water shocked his system and for a moment, he thought he could hear the distinct sound of off-kilter ticking.

When his stunned mind cleared, he kicked up to the surface, taking a moment to blink stray droplets of water from his eyes and shaking out his hair before swimming to the edge of the pool and dragging himself up. He shot a quick glance at Yamato still sitting in his circle of wooden pillars with his hand outstretched towards Naruto and the clones still lining the impressive water way practicing using their wind chakra to slice through the waterfall.

He sighed when he realised just what had happened, he'd allowed the balance of elemental chakra to become disturbed and had unwittingly unleashed too much power, throwing himself off of the bridge. The waterfall covered the damage done to the rock but Naruto could see the slightly darkened scar in the landscape behind the curtain of water.

He frowned, unable to shake a feeling of unease which accompanied a sudden and frighteningly clear thought.

Turning, he made his way towards Yamato who was concentrating carefully on Naruto's clones before dropping down into a cross legged position just outside of the wooden pillars, unwilling to disturb the process of chakra repression.

Dark eyes met blue for an instant and Naruto took it as an invitation to start speaking.

"This isn't real," he stated firmly. "I think I'm trapped in some sort of illusion…or I'm asleep or something and I need to get out of here but I don't know how to go about it and I'm not always aware that this isn't real."

He fixed Yamato with an expectant stare, waiting as he watched the frown flicker briefly over his captain's face. Yamato was a member of the ANBU, a fact that Naruto had picked up in his time with the man so he was sure that he was best qualified to provide the answer to Naruto's current, serious problem.

After a while, Yamato took a deep breath and motioned for Naruto to release his shadow clone jutsu. Naruto did as instructed and winced under the sudden mental strain of accumulated experience, a harsh sweat breaking over his forehead.

"If I'm not real and you are, in fact, dreaming," Yamato began, shuffling round to face Naruto. "Then surely I am only limited by your own knowledge of the situation and can offer you nothing new to think about."

Naruto blinked slowly, considering this.

He had a point but still, it didn't hurt to discuss these things.

Even if it was inevitably with yourself…or something…

"How can you be sure this is a dream?" Yamato pushed and the question made Naruto feel a little uneasy.

He wasn't sure how he could tell, just that he was adamant, despite the scarily in depth detail of this dream, the way his chakra flowed and the feeling of having a thousand thoughts pressing at him at the same time from a dispersed shadow clone technique, that this was not real. Not only that, but he was certain this particular dream-like state was not natural. There was something about the way he was aware of the dream that made him suspicious of genjutsu but the way he kept forgetting that this wasn't real alluded to something else entirely.

It was frustrating.

He wanted out.

And the vague sense of urgency attached to that want was alarming. He could be anywhere right now, away on a mission that had gone horribly wrong and he needed to know if he was alright, if he'd been with comrades and if they were alright.

"If this is a dream…then maybe there's a reason that you aren't waking up," Yamato commented thoughtfully. "Perhaps it's for the best that you remain asleep for now like perhaps you're recovering from something."

Naruto allowed this suggestion to churn through him for a moment before shaking his head.

"I don't think so, there's something _off _about all this you know?"

Yamato blinked at him and then put one of his fingers to his lips, allowing it to run along the jagged edges of his teeth as he gave this problem further thought. Naruto waited with baited breath, afraid that he wouldn't be able to hold on to this lucidity long enough for Yamato to come up with a solution.

Eventually, Yamato let out a frustrated sigh and looked at Naruto with defeated eyes, endless pools of lifeless black.

"It's no good Naruto, trying to wake yourself up from something like this without a companion, if we're using genjutsu analogy, is like trying to look left whilst looking right at the same time."

* * *

Naruto was upside down on his chair with his maths book open on the floor beneath his desk. His feet hung above him and the pull of gravity on his muscles was somewhat pleasant as he let his feet hover in the delicate equilibrium created by adjusting his posture ever so slightly. His eyes were fixed on the first problem of their current homework and he muttered to himself as he tried to reign in his concentration and process what was before him.

"If Nagato has the Rinnegan but Yahiko has the will of fire which is worth -3 Rinnegan and Konan has 198 pieces of paper…"

He frowned, trying to figure out exactly how the Rinnegan might relate to the pieces of paper when the door to the classroom clicked open, startling Naruto and disturbing his balance, causing him to tumble.

"Ah!" he exclaimed as his legs crashed into the desk above him with a sharp crunch and he crumpled, his chair sliding out beneath him and scraping on hard linoleum. He ended up sprawled in an undignified heap of limbs underneath his desk, biting back a string of curse words as he felt at the damage to his legs and what felt like serious pain in his shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing dobe?"

He automatically froze when he heard the hard voice of the person possibly considered his best friend, fighting the sudden rush of excitement to try and appear unperturbed by Sasuke's arrival, despite the fact that he was glad he didn't have to spend any more time than usual by himself today.

"I was trying to engage the logical part of my brain by…uh…getting the blood flow going," Naruto admitted sheepishly as he climbed out from under the desk, massaging his aching shoulder.

"Maths is like someone asking me to look left while I'm looking right," Naruto shrugged, frowning at himself for the use of this analogy though unable to say why this would bother him. "I thought I might need to use unconventional methods to make progress, you know?"

Sasuke was looking at him like he'd grown a second head but he'd been expecting this. His way of thinking wasn't exactly what you would call 'in the box'.

"Tch, idiot," Sasuke said after a moment's reflection, striding forward to pick up Naruto's chair and set it upright at his desk. "You know you could just ask for a tutor if you're finding it that hard."

Naruto decided to ignore the condescending tone for today, though usually it would raise his hackles, because the truth of the matter was that no matter how hard he tried, he just wasn't getting it. Maths was never going to be something he'd find easy, the idea of applying logical restrictions to things, to have a perfect right answer every time had never appealed to Naruto. He liked things to have a grey area, to have possibilities. He liked the idea of being able to prove that 1+1 could equal 3 if you really believed it.

"Tutors are expensive," Naruto pointed out, crouching down and retrieving his text book from under the desk. "And besides, I can do it. I just have to work harder."

When Sasuke didn't respond to this with his usual cutting retaliation, Naruto pivoted back to fix him with a curious gaze and was surprised to find Sasuke staring at him so intently that Naruto's own eyes began to water in sympathy.

"What?" he asked, glancing down to check himself for a stray food stain or something.

Sasuke remained silent for a further minute or two before sighing and rolling his eyes, apparently deeply frustrated, or mortally offended by Naruto's optimism, Naruto was never sure which.

"Come on dobe, take me back to your place and I'll help you out for a few hours."

Naruto's eyes grew round as saucers. The fingers wrapped around his text book tightened so much that his knuckles went white.

"What?"

"I'll tutor you," Sasuke bit out slowly. "God knows I need you to stop whining throughout maths so that I can concentrate for the upcoming exams. This seems to be the best way to shut you up."

Naruto couldn't believe what he was hearing. Sasuke was offering to tutor him? To help him get better in a subject that was almost impossible for Naruto to grasp? Wait…did he say that he wanted to come back to-

"Uh, my place isn't such a good idea," Naruto told him uncertainly, deciding that the view out the window was a better bet than looking at Sasuke's expression, pointedly angling his gaze away.

"Why not?" Sasuke asked carelessly.

"Uh…" Naruto faltered, his mind flying through the usual excuses, fumigation, flooding, epically loud neighbours, but none of them, he knew, would sit with Sasuke. Of course, he realised that he'd waited too long to provide a suitable answer the moment that Sasuke made a noise of disapproval, marching out of the classroom with Naruto hot on his heels.

"You only live about 30 minutes away by foot right?" Sasuke asked, walking at a militant pace along the corridor to the front door.

"Well…yeah but like I said-

"I need to be back here at half 8 for the information evening so it's easier to work at your place. My place is a little further out."

"Why don't we just work here?" Naruto asked in a panicked voice, unable to hide his discomfort with the idea of Sasuke following him home.

Sasuke gave him a scathing look before pulling the main door open and stepping into the afternoon.

"You are aware that they will be closing the school for a few hours to clean before the information evening right? I cannot hang around until half 8. Do you want me to help you or not?"

"Yes!" Naruto confirmed immediately, all too aware that an offer like this was not going to turn up again and unable to comprehend the horrors of being held back a year should he fail the upcoming exams.

It seemed he had no choice.

"Take a left outside," he told Sasuke dejectedly, wondering if he might have time to do a quick sweep of the kitchen before Sasuke managed to fully enter his apartment and start complaining about the mess.

Sasuke strode forward purposefully and took the left outside of the school gates as Naruto suggested, disappearing from sight for a moment.

Naruto paused.

There was a rush of panic in his chest, hot and hard and completely irrational. For some reason, he felt that this time, as Sasuke had disappeared for what seemed like literally only a moment – in the time it took for Naruto to walk around the corner, that the belligerent Uchiha, the boy considered his rival and his very best friend, would disappear for good.

"Sasuke!" he called out urgently, breaking into a sprint, only vaguely perplexed that the sound of his feet on the concrete sounded completely different to normal as he rounded the corner and ran almost head first into the back of Sasuke.

The older boy was frozen on the pathway.

He was wearing the wrong clothes, a white shirt with his family crest on the back, a pair of odd trousers that were held up with what looked like a length of thick purple rope, strange open toed boots and a katana strapped to his back like a statement.

Naruto stared up at him with sorrowful eyes.

"Why didn't you kill me back then?" he asked and his voice was little more than a whisper.

When Sasuke turned, his eyes flashed red for an instant, swirling with the power of the sharingan and he shifted towards Naruto, laying an arm on his shoulder in a way that should have been a lazy display of affection. Naruto stiffened, feeling the killing intent roll off of him in waves.

"Last time, you survived because of my whim and this time…"

Sasuke reached up, the fabric of his white shirt riding down on his arms as he stretched back to grip at the bandaged handle of the katana, drawing it with a sharp slice.

"…you will die because of my whim."

In a single movement, the blade was nothing but a glittering, silver after image on the air and Naruto tried to prepare himself for what was to ultimately be the end.

* * *

"Was it really just a whim to let me live Sasuke?"

"…Yes."

"Don't lie to me."

"What could I possibly gain from lying to you?"

"You're not a killer Sasuke-teme."

"…I will be."

"…Will you regret it?"

…

"…No."

* * *

_Any idea what's going on? Is Naruto really trapped in a genjutsu or is it something else? Why does he keep losing lucidity and just what is real?_

_Hooray for ambiguity!_


End file.
